Google sells nearly 1 million Nexus 7 tablets each month

The $199 starting price on Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 was widely expected to bolster sales, but no one could really project how the affordable Jelly Bean tablet would be received considering the tablet’s relatively limited distribution and the mass market’s all-around indifference when it comes to most Android tablets. According to Asus chief financial officer David Chang, however, Nexus 7 sales have grown significantly and now total nearly 1 million units each month. “At the beginning, it was, for instance, 500K units a month, then maybe 600, 700K,” Chang told The Wall Street Journal in an interview. “This latest month, it was close to one million.” The figure doesn’t approach iPad sales, which are in excess of 1 million units each week, but they are impressive nonetheless considering how much wider iPad distribution is and how much Apple (AAPL) spends promoting it compared to the Nexus 7.